Russian human rights issues

This section includes Bellona’s coverage related to individuals’ access to environmental and human rights in Russia, and the impediments to securing those rights in an ever more authoritarian state.

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Russian human rights issues

July 23, 2015 Russian human rights issues, Russian NGO law

Russian NGOs struggle with Justice Ministry warning to call themselves ‘foreign agents’ in print

Russia’s Justice Ministry has warned 12 homegrown non-profits that they’ll face more fines and shutdown unless they display in their printed, distributed, and Internet publications that they “perform [their] functions as a foreign agent,” Interfax reported. The new edict was greeted by one NGO head, who while speaking with Bellona via Skype asked to remain […]

July 21, 2015 Russian human rights issues, Russian NGO law

Bold Russian anti-nuke group waves off foreign agent law, refuses to pay mounting fines

Russia’s Ecodefense anti-nuclear group has again been fined for refusing to register as a “foreign agent” with the country’s Justice Ministry in a court hearing to which the group’s co-chair, Vladimir Slivyak, said the organization had not even been invited to attend. Slivyak told Bellona in an interview that Ecodefense was informed only Monday, July […]

July 13, 2015 Russian human rights issues, Sochi Olympic Games

Cautious optimism among supporters that Vitishko may be released early

A regional court in the Tambov Region of Russia has delayed a hearing on a petition that could free jailed environmentalist Yevgeny Vitishko until the end of the month, but his colleagues and other ecologists are cautiously optimistic he could be freed. In February 2014, during the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, Vitishko was sentenced to […]